A experimentAl novel

written by B.S JohnsonA typogrAphicAl try

out on excerpt´s from

AlbertAngelo

Mr. Coulter takes you down to the dining-hall. Long rows of cream Formica-topped skeletaltables, skeletal chairs with steam-moulded lami-nated wooden seats and backs, lines of children at two closed hatches. The noise is tremendous, due largely to the acoustic properties of the hall. Mr. Coulter goes to the clais, picks up a large brass handbell and rings it violently. Most of the children stop talking.

“when you stop chAttering, then you cAn hAve your dinner!”

he bellows. He picks on a child at random. “ gerAld thompson, you cAn´t stop tAlking so you´ll hAve to wAit until the end. go to the very bAck of the queue. go on,

move, boy! Anyone else?”They are silent now.

“mrs. goodmAn. i think we Are just About reAdy to stArt diner now.”

The hatches open, and in a remarkably short time the lines have disappeared and the tables have filled with small children, eating and talking. The noise is worse than before, there now being added the clatter of knives and forks. Mr. Coulter tells you to go around giving permission to those who have finished and are sitting up straight with their arms folded to take their plates out and collect their puddings. The tablemanner are appalling by Mr. Coulter´s standards. You notice him correcting one eight-year-old girl for some time. You do not attent to do anything similar yourself: these child-

ren and their manners are the product of their environement. You are not sure enough of your own standards to take the responsibility of impo-sing them on these children for whom they would probably be quite inappropriate.You do, however, very surely deal with two boys who are delighted-ly spattering each other with mashed potato.School dinner is finished in just over fifteen minutes, the slower eaters being chivvied and forced. Mr Coulter tells you how they pride themselves on this speed.

“so even if you do consider it An imposition, Albert,” he says as you climb back towards the staffroom and your own meal,

“you cAn see thAt At this school we mAke dinner duty As pAinless As possible.”

The staffroom is at the top floor. There is a view from it out to the south east, over the city. You are grateful for it. Some of the tower blocks are very good in their own right, though too many of them have services untidily designed on their roofs. After lunch you sit sketching it in your note-book, the skyline: blocks, spires, St. Paul´s. The blocks set off the cathedrale: none are as tall: their rectangularity against the dome´s sweet curve. The rest of the staff chatter and laugh: the air beco-mes polluted with thesmoke of theircamaraderie. They think you are unsociable. Even the

St Paul´s Church, is a Church of England cathe-dral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604

woman of thirty does not talk to you afte she has give you another cup of tea and charged you ano-ther two pence for it. You do not mind.You teach them simple sentence construction during the first session of the afternoon.You read them a story during the second session of the afternoon.You feel exhausted at the end of the afternoon.You decide to walk home slowly, up the City Road, towards the Angel, City Arms; St. Mark’s Hospital for Fistula &c.; Mona Lisa Cafe restaurant; vast anonymous factory block shouldering Georgian first ratings mainly used for light industries; Albi-on House with two lovely bow-fronts spoilt by nursery stickers inside the windows and two comi-cally sentimental placed dogs guarding the steps. Sale Closing Down. Aspenville wallpaper. Claremont Mission. Overgrown gardens this side. Claremont Square. The Bank again, yellow, saffron, green. Across Amwell Street, down great Percy Street, to the circus. You feel far less tired when you reach your flat.You walk to school as well the next morning, for your second day at St. Sepulchre´´. You look forward to teaching. You think of it as a greatprivilege, to be allowed to work amongst children. Very worthwhile, very satisfying. You think of these as commonplaces, but true and relevant, and remember this is how you always feel, enthu-siastic and dedicate at the start of a term. The disenchantment sets in, after perhaps two weeks.But this second morning you look forward to

teaching. You arrive early. You talk with the early children as friends, interesting yourself in their interests. When the class has assembled you say good morning to them. smiling, and they respond readily. You try to the standard jokes:

“All those who Are Absent pleAse put up their hAnds.” They are allowed to laugh at this.And, later:

“now who´s going to hAve super delicious school dinners?”

They are allowed to groan at this, in a derisi-ve manner.You like your class. You want to teach them well, as a result. Mr. Coulter interrupts you first lesson, ostensibly to tell you are on play-ground duty today, but really, you are sure, to check up on you. The class is working quietly, and you are giving personal attention to one children when he comes in. You are pleased he has not caught you out. he tells you that no ballgames are allowed in the playground because children have too frequently been knocked over and injured whilst playing them. When you see them in the confined area of the playground, you can understand why. But, de-prived of ballgames, the boys have evolved other ways of playing. The playground has a slope of perhaps one in twelve in its fifteen-yard length, and groups of boys link arms against the factory wall at the back and rush down on it. This game they call Chariots. You stop them, feeling a spoil-

sport as you do so. Even so, you notice that at any given moment. Even so you notice that at any gi-ven moment there seem to be just as many boys on the ground, fi ghting, or beeing tripped, or fallin.You go through the door in the fl etton wall to the girls side. You notice that the wall is badly laid. You presine that this was once one playground, and that, devided, it now serves for more children.Many of the girls are standing in small groups, talking. Other chase round these groups. Some of those from your class run over to you and cling to your arms looking up at you and smiling and laug-hing. You are pleased with their attention, but quite relieved at the same time that no adult can see you; especially no adult who knows you.

Dark, red cheeks, dirty mouth. So fair, skin pale as white vitriolite, one incisor broken at the corner.

Strong, neat, curiously twisted smile.Tall, shy, never taking her eyes from you.

Yous shiver slightly; you wish you had put on your overcoat. You wonder how the wind pene-trates such an enclosed space.You wonder why there is no woman techaer on duty in this playg-round.*Jenny! Just like Jenny. Not in your class. That square set of the shoulder, the same type of face, but coarser, oh, far coarser than Jenny´s. But eyes just as lovely, just a treacherous.*

Dark, red cheeks, dirty mouth. So fair, skin pale as white vitriolite, one incisor broken at the corner.

Strong, neat, curiously twisted smile.Tall, shy, never taking her eyes from you.

A boy comes running through the door up to you and says that someone is hurt. Gently, you make the girls leave hold of you and go through to see. A boy has grazed his hand against the wall. You ask who attends to such things in this school, and then send the boys with two of his friends to the school secretary. You see by your watch that playtime has ended, but you give them three minutes befo-re blowing your whistle. they line up reasonably quickly, and do not talk. You are surprised. You stand in the doorway attempting to control the files in both playgrounds at once. The first period after lunch you feel relaxed, completely in control of your class. You begin a geography lesson which turns into a lesson on London then into a lesson of architecture. You try very hard to make it interesting and understand-able to your children. That they are quiet seems to indicate that you are succeeding: there is only one slight disturbance when Bufton, toying with a pencil sends it skittering across the classroom; and this you deal with patiently. Even the Greek Cypriots seem to be watching and listening, though presumably they can understand very little of what you are saying. The bell cuts short your lesson while they are still attentive and not restrive.Before going down to the playground you ask Mr. Coulter what special arrangements there are for teaching the Cypriots. He is non-committal about it, resents your asking the question, and

implies that it is not really the concern of a supply teacher.

Face of a failed saint, boyblue eyes, hair like a drummer‘s brush.

„ere, sir d‘you know some boy,‘e sAid there wAs A pole frough the norf And souf poles!“

Your arms ache where they drag on you.You set the rest of tour class to read, and have the Cypriots out as a group. Eray Mustapha, whom you had hoped to use as an interperter, you fi nd speaks Turkish and can no more communicate with the Greeks than you can. You take a simple reading book with large coloured pictures in it, and, from a slight knowledge of classical Greek, you identify such objects and ideas as you can for them:

Fedros and particularly Andreas are quick to pick up the words, and point to other objects and give them their Greek names in return for your gi-ving their English ones: but the girl Nevin is shy, and you have great diffi culty in persuading her to join in.At the end of the afternoon you feel very tired. You have tripled your Greek vocabulary. You catch a bus home. The next day it is raining. On going into your class you fi nd a stranger there. You assume he is Mr. MacKenzie, though he does not introduce

Face of a failed saint, boyblue eyes, hair like a drummer‘s brush.

himself. He does not seem curious about the work you have been doing with his class. Mr. Coulter comes in to tell you to go on to Wormswood street Junior Boys‘ School. Mr. Coulter does not say goodbye to you, and you are overpolite to him. On your way out you see some more of your class, and you smile at them but do not stop to talk. In your A Z you fi nd that Wormwood street is in the City, just to the south of Liverpool Street Station. You catch a bus to Finsbury Circus and walk through crowds of crowdressedmen and artifi cially coloured offi cebirds. It pleases you to walk slowly, to be going about something so totally different from these people. The school secretary seats you in the Headmaster‘s room until as-sembly is over. He is a round, meaty man, the Headmaster, when he comes. The school is a small one, and you are to take the single fi rst-year class in place of a teacher who has been released for two days to attend a course. All boys. superbly natural haircuts. Real.

Perpetually grinning eyes, skijump nose, thin lips.Blacker than you would think possible, starred by teeth white as the

weathered western face of Portland stone, eyes brown as brazil nuts. Bleu eyes. staring, postbox mouth, ears like open

cardoors.

Liverpool Street Station is a central London railway ter-minus and a connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London. Opened in 1874, it is the terminus of two main lines: the busier Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) to Norwich, and the West Anglia Main Line to Cambridge.

superbly natural haircuts. Real.

Perpetually grinning eyes, skijump nose, thin lips.Blacker than you would think possible, starred by teeth white as the

weathered western face of Portland stone, eyes brown as brazil nuts. Bleu eyes. staring, postbox mouth, ears like open

cardoors.

A new desk, hardly kicked. A worn dirty cushion upon which you feel unable to bring your-self to sit. Grey cupboards, pitted blackboard, no decoration at all on the walls except for a frayed canvas map of the world as Mercator projected it. A lean budgerigar in a rusting cage making untime-ly interruptions. The modern method: tables grouped in threes, so that some children have to turn their heads to face you. Should be grouped according to relative intelligence. You look round to try to see which is which. There is an art which can tell something of the mind’s construction in the face. You set them to read, to start with, the ope-ning gambit, unchanging. They are used to having a woman teacher, but they are not well disciplined. They begin to get on top of you. You must clamp down on them. You hit one of them. It is the wrong one to hit: he has a bad ear, the others tell you, in chorus, and you have hit it. He stares through the window to hide his tears from you, infi nitely pathetic, for the rest of the lesson. You feel guilty, but suppress the feeling. It is an enormous effort. You worry about the boy, quietly, for the rest of the morning.You use eccentrically colored chalks, for relief.At the end of the day you are depressed. It is at such times that you feel the loss of Jenny most. Somehow, she represents the depression, is responsible for it in a basic but indirect way; but responsible in a way that you admit is not her fault. Paradox. At such times she

should be here to solace you.You walk home des-pondently.The second day at Wormwood is worse. You despair of being able to teach. Even when you try to entertain you evoke little response from the boys. Yet you like them. You hate yourself. By midday the strain of being responsible for every child whose nose bleeding is almost at breaking-point.You are very glad and very tired when the end of the day comes and you leave Wormwood.They send you the next day, on the Friday, the last day of the first week, to Crane Grove Secondary, up past Highbury Corner, off the Holloway Road. The five- and six- storey schools in this part stand above the three-story streets like chaotic castella-tions. Dead cinemas and a musical sadden corner, abandoned. Only Arsenal Stadium, older-looking in its outdated modernity than last century’s houses, competes in height with the dark red brick, stonedressed schools. Swart sleek diesels shaped as functionally as otters pass and re-pass solemnly between strips of houses at eaves-level pulling trains of rust-stained wagons. You spend all day teaching simple English to the third-year classes, fourteen-year-olds who have very little interest in learning: they are waiting only to leave school. You try to arouse their interest by pointing out how basic a know-ledge of at least English must be. One boy says he can read the racing, and that that’s enough for him.

A mulatto, next to him, with negroid features, coffee-coloured, frizzy hair tending towards fairness.

They sit, large and awkward at the aluminium-framed tables and chairs, men and women, physically, whom you are for today trying to help to teach to take places in a society you do not believe in, in which their values already prevail rather than yours. Most will be wives and hus-bands, some will be whores and ponchos: it’s all the same; any who think will be unhappy, all who don’t think will die.Even the lavatory-gothic of the Union Chapel in Compton Terrace cannot make you smile on your way back home, nor the glimpse of Barry’s Holy Trinity in Cloudesley Square encourage you by a reminder that a good architects’ early work may be poor. The end of the last day of the fi rst week

A mulatto, next to him, with negroid features, coffee-coloured, frizzy hair tending towards fairness.

You all must have been told about god in previous R.I. lesson with your own teacher, you must have talked about god as thought it was cer-tain that he existed as thought his existence was a fact. I want this morning briefly not to question the existence of god—the law wouldn’t approve of my doing that in any case in this classroom—but I do want to ask some questions about a few of the things which follow from accepting, as we do, of course, in this classroom, that there is a god.

You have all been taught, for instance, that god is good, that god is love: yet from my own experience, limited as it is to your own twel-ve or thirteen years of life, you must all have seen that this is hardly likely to be true, or, if it is true at all, true only in a very special and in a very li-mited way. How can you think that god is good when you learn in history lessons about terrible wars which have killed thousands of people, and made thousands more, and even millions more, suffer? Some of which wars, like the Crusades, have been undertaken in god’s name? If god created everything, must he not then have created war, as well? And disease, too, and suffering, and death, and poverty, and all the unpleasant things in the world? Can such a god be called good, then, can such a god be called the God of love? Perhaps only when he is being good, perhaps only when he is be loving?

You have been told, too, that he is a god who knows everything: omniscient is the word we

use to mean ‘knows everything’, om - ni - sci - ent, it’s a Latin word. I’ll put it on the board. But does god know everything? Everything? Does he re-ally? Everything that’s going on, everything that there is? Does he know, for instance, how many specks of chalkdust there are on the board? Or in this classroom? Or in the whole world? And why should he be interested, anyway, in how many specks of chalkdust there are?

All these are really questions about what sort of a god he is, then, assuming, as we do ,that he does exist; they are questions about what we can know about him. Is there any reason why he should not be a bad god, for instance, an evil god, if he made all the evil things in the world too? Do you think that he might actually have made a mess of creating the world, and that the bad things were mistakes he couldn’t put right? Even if he was capable of thinking up the idea of creating the world, does that mean as well that he was capable of actually doing it? What if he saw that he’d bitten off more than he could chew, and then just gave up the world as a bad job—or a bad joke—and went off to try to do better somewhere else? Yet if he is capable of better, why didn’t he do it on earth? Perhaps some of you know how, if you make a bad job of something, then you hate it and everything connected with it. Is that how god feels about us, and about the world? And has he just deserted us, left us to get on as best we can in his mess? Has he just gone away? Gone off in dis-

gust, perhaps, if not in hatred, to somewhere else, just not interested any more in us? Or perhaps he is dead—how do we know that he couldn’t die, that he couldn’t be dead?

You cannot, I cannot, no one can know, truly know, the answer to these questions. What is certain is that you are here on this earth and that there are some good things and some bad things, and that you enjoy the good things and that you suffer the bad things. This is what is called the hu-man predicament, or the human condition, or the situation. ‘Predicament’, ‘condition’ and ‘situation’ in this case are all words which mean something like ‘fi x’, ‘jam’, ‘awkward position’. And being as you all are means that you are in this ‘awkward fi x’ of enjoying the good things whilst at the same time having to suffer the bad things, whether or not anyone or any god created it. Whether or not, remember, whether or not.

Faced with this human situation, then, what do you do? What can you do? The main thing is to behave with dignity, dignity: human dignity is your greatest refuge, your greatest comfort. Ac-cept the situation, do not go blaming the bad things on to god, or, equally, thanking him for the good things; accept that the fi re burns you and that stone is hard when you run up against, come into contact with, either of them, accept that wom… that other people are treacherous to you and hurt you: and remember that fi re is good for warmth, for instance, and pavement for walking

situation. ‘Predicament’, ‘condition’ and

something like ‘fi x’, ‘jam’, ‘awkward position’. And being as you all are means that you are

is your greatest refuge, your greatest comfort. Ac-cept the situation, do not go blaming the bad things on to

on, and other people—often the same people—are also kind and warm and loving sometimes. You can accept it all with dignity, dignity, the greatest, the most godlike, of all human qualities. You can accept responsibility for everything, but absolute-ly everything, that happens to you: for who else is there to do so?

And call nothing human, inhuman: this man in the papers who cut up his wife and sent her in bits through the post to her relatives, for instance, is not inhuman. How could his actions, being those of a being, be called inhuman? They are encompassed by humanity, they even have a comic side to them, and the comic goes a long way towards making up for anything. He did not harm to you, did he, nor to me? What unthin-king people mean by calling him ‘inhuman’ is really that he offended against the best in humani-ty, that he failed to achieve the good, the best, of which humanity is capable. But he’s still a being, in the same condition as you are, in the same condition as I am. He lost his dignity, you could say of him and his actions, he could not ac-cept the suffering with dignity: and that is perhaps the lowest state of humanity, that is certainly a crime against humankind.In the end, all you are left with is the dignity of humankind.

You have heard me ask a great many questions this morning, and heard me give one answer. You must go away and think about what I have said for yourselves. Some of my questions

instance, is not inhuman. How could his actions, being those of a being, be called inhuman? They are encompassed by humanity, they even

which humanity is capable. But he’s still a being, in the same condition as you are, in

may seem silly to you, some may not even seem to be real questions at all, to you. What you must not do is to think that these are real questions and yet still think you know anything about god. In other words, don’t let there be a difference between what you believe because you have been told it, and what you have seen and felt for yourselves. Whether you decide there is or is not a god, or whether you refuse to decide, face up to being , to being in the human predicament, and accept with dignity everything, but everything, that happens to you in any way whatsoever.

And think, tomorrow morning when you’re singing the hymn in assembly, think what the words mean, and whether you believe them to be true, then think why you are singing them

whether you refuse to decide, face up to being , to being in the human predicament, and